State Sues Owners Of Lake Resort For Allegedly Bilking Vacationers

The Illinois attorney general's office has sued the owners of an Ingleside resort campground, saying they sold memberships to the camp even while they planned to close it.

U.S. Vacation Resorts Inc. also is accused in the lawsuit of failing to tell potential members that it was selling its other resorts across the U.S. because of financial problems, cutting the value in the chain of campgrounds, said Assistant Atty. Gen. Mark Lopez.

The lawsuit also names Adventure Outdoor Resorts Inc., a Florida company that allegedly told U.S. Vacation members that it could save the Wooster Lake resort by buying membership upgrades.

Those upgrades, according to Lopez, sold for $2,295. U.S. Vacation and Adventure Outdoor are accused of conspiring to defraud members.

U.S. Vacation, whose members can stay at its resorts all across the country, sold the clubhouse furniture at Wooster Lake on Oct. 1 and has closed its gates.

"This lawsuit was a great Christmas present," said Kim Eudy of Ingleside, whose family once owned the campground. "We're really elated that it happened."

The lawsuit was filed Dec. 21 in Cook County Circuit Court, Lopez said. This week, the attorney general's office placed a lien on the Wooster Lake property.

No one answered the telephones at U.S. Vacation's headquarters in Santa Rosa, Calif. Officials of Adventure Outdoor in Lakeland, Fla., did not return telephone calls.

Eudy said the camp's future was uncertain. Although the clubhouse furniture was sold, she said the camp still could be salvaged-if someone could wrest it away from U.S. Vacation. She said her mother was trying to buy back the property.

"Hopefully," Eudy said, "they'll just say, `Here, you can have it back.' "